Survey Timing

A survey can be implemented at any time, but is best used around weeks four to six of a typical semester. This allows enough time for your students to form an opinion about what is happening in your class, but leaves plenty of time for you to respond to student feedback and adjust their perceptions and experiences.
For the best results, distribute surveys to students during the first 10 minutes of class. This will help to maximize both the quality and quantity of results. For large classes, you may want to use a tool like Qualtrics to gather the feedback.
Whenever possible, aim to respond to this feedback by the end of your next class. If you do not expect to be able to do this, it is a good idea to let your students know this up front. That way, they do not begin to believe that you are not taking their feedback seriously.

Creating Surveys and Survey Questions

When gathering feedback from students during the semester, it is best to use open-ended questions with a focus on identifying strengths and suggestions for your course. In addition, aim to word your questions so that they are about learning, instead of just what students “like” or “don’t like” (e.g., What is helping you learn? What suggestions do you have for ways to improve your ability to learn in this course?).
For quantitative questions:

1. Create prompts as declarative sentences focused on an area of interest (see the sidebar for links to a few question banks)
2. Create a 5-point rating scale along a continuum (e.g., Strongly disagree | Disagree | Uncertain | Agree | Strongly agree)
3. Include a follow-up question to prompt students to explain their ratings (see Survey Sample B, on the sidebar)

Five Steps for Responding to Survey Feedback

1. Reflect. Before you look at data you have gathered, think about what you are expecting. What has been working well? What are some areas for growth/development/change?
2. Read & React. Look at the feedback you have gathered. Allow yourself to have an emotional reaction — good or bad — in response to the data.
3. Relax. Take a break. Process your emotions and prepare yourself to come back to the data with a fresh, more objective approach.
4. Revisit. Return to the feedback data you have gathered, and process it with a view to understanding your students’ perceptions and experiences in your class.
5. Respond. Make decisions about what you will and will not change in your course, in response to the feedback your students have provided. Communicate this to your students, along with the reasoning behind your choices, and the connection it has to the feedback they have given you. Ideally, you should provide your follow-up before the end of the class immediately following your collection of survey data.

Interpreting Survey Data Systematically

The best approach to this sort of feedback is to begin with a systematic analysis of the data you have collected. This will help you identify the strengths of your approach to your class — in the eyes of your students — as well as the areas of discomfort or dysfunction. Your aim is to first understand your students’ perceptions and experiences, to help you make decisions about changes to make (now and for the next iteration of your course), and things to keep the same.

Interpreting Quantitative Data
Quantitative data typically comes in the form of responses on a two to seven point scale. Begin by assigning a point value to each response (e.g., Disagree=0, Agree=3), then calculate the average score for each question, across all responses. Sophisticated statistical methods are not necessary for this analysis.
Make note of any anomalies in the data (e.g., very low scores from just one student) that may artificially raise or lower your average score. Pay particular attention to areas of strength and areas for development, based on the average scores for each question. Use student comments to help you understand student reasoning behind the ratings they have given for each element.

Interpreting Qualitative Data
For responses to open-ended questions, you need to sort your responses and identify themes. Note the frequency of themes, areas of agreement and disagreement among students, and suggestions students have for changes you might make.

References

• Berk, Ronald A. (2006). Thirteen Strategies to Measure College Teaching. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
• Buskist, Connie and Hogan, Jan (2010). She Needs a Haircut and a New Pair of Shoes: Handling Those Pesky Course Evaluations. Journal of Effective Teaching. 10 (1), 51-56.
  
• Cohen, Peter (1980). Effectiveness of Student-Rating Feedback for Improving College Instruction: A Meta-Analysis of Findings. Research in Higher Education 13 (4), 321-341.
  
• Murray, H. G. (2007). Low-inference teaching behaviors and college teaching effectiveness: Recent developments and controversies. In R. P. Perry & J. C. Smart (Eds.), The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education: An evidence-based perspective (pp. 145-200). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.